It Was the Bear

So, my life consists of these 3 wonderfully amazing kids.

See, totally the cutest kids ever, right?!?!?  Yeah, I'm a little biased, but they are pretty darn cute...plus, I made them  :)

So, the older two are 6 and 4 years old.  And the 4 year old will follow her brother to the ends of the Earth.  She is completely enamored with her brother.  And my 6 year old, well, he's definitely a 6 year old boy...and, much to the dismay of my daughter at times, has quite the imagination.

Today, that imagination has put my daughter into a crying panic that would make a hormonal pregnant woman who forgot what her feet look like to shame.

It is the weekend.  This means that yesterday was Friday, which means in our house all snow gear comes home.  We do live in Vermont after all, and this is the dead of winter.  So, yeah, Vermont...winter...lots of snow on the ground.  Snow gear is required to be brought home from school for weekends when mom feels like if she hears another "Mom, mom, mommy, MOM!!!!!  So-and-so is looking at me" she may stab herself repeatedly with a dull spoon.  Hey, I just want the annoyance, not the injury :)

It's only Saturday, and, yes, I have already gotten to that point.  So, the kids were made to get dressed (I swear clothes are like kryptonite to my kids...I may as well be monitoring a nudist colony here), put their snow gear on, and GET  OUT!!!!!!

Surprisingly this happened without a fight.  Seems normal enough to have no fight about the outside with kids, but, unless you forgot, I am in Vermont in the dead of winter with kids who are seasoned nudists.  So, usually, the thought of having to put on the nudist-nullifying clothes sends my kids into a frantic panic I swear my neighbors can hear, and the nearest one is at least a mile down the road from me.

Sipping on my hot coffee, contemplating the mess that is my abode (I have 3 kids), while the youngest hair pulling inducing child sits on my hip alternating between shoving his Plums puffs in his mouth and wiping his snotty face on my shoulder (I rarely notice the snot anymore.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it is normal attire for the worn and weary mom) I start to come back to some sort of normal semblance of a mom.  Well, minus the fact that I am grudgingly looking at my messy abode wondering how such tiny creatures can cause destruction that would bring a typhoon, tornado, and snow storm at the same exact moment in the same exact place to shame.

So, when my daughter starts knocking on the door to come in (she can't quite open the door by herself) I think that I am ready to start this process over one more time.  Or.........at least I THOUGHT!!!!

There is something about having an older brother with an imagination.  I'm not quite sure what it is because I am the oldest child.  But, the things that my oldest puts his sister through, I'm pretty sure that he is channelling his uncle.  The stories I could tell of my day to day with that ball of interesting imagination.  But, those are stories for another day.

So, my daughter is ready to come inside.  I walk over to the door to let her in only to find her clinging to her older brother.  He is laughing with this devilish grin...the kind of grin you know is going to come with a story that will make you wish you had some Bailey's to add to your coffee.  And my daughter is crying hysterically as she is clinging to my oldest.

I try to coax her inside, but she is not budging.  This is ridiculous.  The girl wants to come in, but I cannot for the life of me get her inside away from her brother, who proudly exclaims that he is quite content continuing his mission outside.  Her crying meltdown just seems to encourage the devilish grin that has seemed to have taken up permanent residence on my son's face.

After an hour of coaxing, or maybe it was only a minute, I finally get her inside.  In the world of crying emotional girlyness, it could've been anywhere between two seconds and four hours.  My perception of time is skewed during these moments, and I can never really decipher the actual time lapse.

Upon entering the indoors my daughter jumps into my arms, wraps her little arms around my neck, and continues her blubbery meltdown.  What is wrong with this child.

Some more coaxing reveals the reason for this meltdowns to end all meltdowns, as well as the reluctance to release her talons from her brother.

You see, it was the bear!!!!

Are you confused yet?  Yeah, so was I.

Turns out, older brothers with imaginations are great at inducing fear into you.

While my daughter proclaims that she is ready to go inside and requests that her brother follow her to continue playing in the warmth of the house, most likely sans clothes cause that's how my kids roll, my son decides to take a different approach in his proclamation that he is not quite ready to shed the skin coverings my kids usually abhor.

He proceeds to tell her that he isn't going inside.  But, since she is going inside he will need to watch out for the bears in case they come out of the woods and into our yard to eat him!!!!

So, have you gathered from the mile away nearest neighbor and bears in the woods that I almost literally live in the woods?

But, it is January...in Vermont.  So, Vermont, January, dead of winter.  Yep, that means hibernation for our bear population.  But, somehow my kids have inherited this wild imagination where they can see various wild animals every time they go outside.  Usually they are being chased by wild wolves and barely make it back to the house without being eaten alive by said wolves.

And so, I sit, with my little girl's arms wrapped around me as she turns into a blubbery mess that would put a ready to pop pregnant woman to shame.  Petting her hair the way a mother does to help soothe her child, I try...note attempt to the highest of all levels as I can possibly muster...to assure her that her older brother is 100% safe to play outside without the fear of a wild bear suddenly deciding that it is warm enough to venture out and attack said brother, all without laughing.

And you want to.  You want to laugh.  And you hope against all hope that the shaking your body is producing from the sad attempt at holding back uninhibited laughter is mistaken for the thought that you are crying with her and not laughing at her.

And, so, it is with that, that I urge you, when you have your children...have a girl first.  These stories do not start quite so soon.  But know, if you have a boy, they will most certainly start no matter what order you have your children in.  But, at least if your oldest is a girl, you can prepare yourself a little better for what is sure to be all things boys....like the bear attacks in the dead of winter.